Beans: a History by Ken Albala

Making soup leads me to recall that beans by another name are legumes and legumes are also known as pulses. It is the mature seeds that grow inside pods that we call peas, beans and lentils. We call some peas beans, and some of the beans peas, but lentils are always called lentils.

The garbanzo bean (also known as the chickpea) is both a bean and a pea, so it is called a legume.

But fear not. There will not be a quiz on this subject matter. Though if you want to know more about the dizzying array of legumes, may I heartily suggest Ken Albala’s book, Beans: A History.  He offers a virtual college course on beans in his book.

View on Manhattan from legendary icon Windows on the World

I can still remember.* In 1976, Gael Greene, then, the Insatiable Restaurant Critic of  NY Magazine, described Windows on the World in its first incarnation, as “the most spectacular restaurant in the world–a place where guests could woo and con each other in tax deductible splendor.”

Windows on the World first opened in 1976, under the direction of restaurant impresario Joe Baum, and in many ways represented New York City’s proud rebirth. “Windows” as it was affectionately called, quickly became New York’s most dazzling and desirable place to be. Simultaneous with its launch was the much-heralded arrival of the Tall Ships in New York harbor, bringing a new spirit of optimism.

Tall Ships passing NY's Twin Towers in 1976, courtesy of Victor Parker Photography

When Joe (and his team) again was invited to remake Windows as that singularly magical dining in the sky experience, he accepted the challenge without hesitation–and with almost total disregard to cost. An official at Port Authority was overheard muttering, “If Joe had an unlimited budget he would find a way to exceed it.” And to no one’s surprise, Joe did.

Joe was fascinated with great urban spaces where people gathered. He viewed them as marketplaces of ideas that served a function similar to the Forum in ancient Rome. From the beginning, his idea was to create Windows on the World as an urban refuge, satisfying the many appetites of body and soul. And he succeeded beyond imagination.

And, my role in all this? Recently I was asked this very question, and I found myself unable to answer simply. In ancient times, I suppose, I would have been considered a scribe. I was Joe’s speechwriter and designated composer of menus, press materials, and scripts for everything from the correct response to a telephone call to the reservations desk, to the required wording for directions to the men’s room.

After one typically infuriating planning meeting in 1995 to discuss the re-opening of Windows in 1996, a meeting where Joe had changed the agenda to his own, he made a list of what needed to be done. The last, the 13th item, is now painful to share.

It read: “Reassure guests there are no mad bombers within 500 square miles.”

* This remembrance is excerpted from Joe Baum: An Exaltation of Larks, published in Gastronomica magazine. For a complete copy of this article, please contact me.

“What we eat and why we choose the foods that make up our daily diet; the ceremonies that surround food; how it underscores our sameness and differences; its mythic and symbolic importance; the joy of plenty; the fear of famine and deprivation — all are occasions for reflections on the human condition.

Why do we tolerate the prevalence of widespread hunger in a world of abundance? What roles do culturally determined food preferences or the power of science, politics, or global trade play in determining who will be well fed and who will starve?”

There is an unending trove of material available, if you want to enliven your cooking classes with some food stories, or enrich your copy if you write about food, or even develop a syllabus for a new  high school or college level course.  For example, this is how I approached a unique series of gastronomy lessons.  I developed some menus and used the prism of food to talk about several areas that I personally found interesting.  Happily the students did too. This is one of my menus:

Oysters Garnished with Sevruga Caviar

Roast Beef

Or

Spiced Crispy Chilean Sea Bass in Ginger-Cardamom Broth

Locally Grown, Organic Mixed Green Salad Seasoned with Salt & Pepper

Lemon Juice and Virgin Olive Oil Dressing

Red Wine and Imported Sparking Water

Cheese Platter and  French Bread

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Tea  or Coffee

This menu provides the framework for discussing the following:

The history of oysters: trade issues involved in banning of imported caviar

The carnivore and the vegetarian diet

Role of chefs in boycotting endangered fish i.e. bass and politics of foie gras

The discovery of fire and its role in the evolution of the human race

Organic farming and genetically engineered crops

The impact of citrus fruit on the global economy

The symbolism of olive oil

The history of the spice trade

The physiology of taste and smell

An examination of issues related to appetite and hunger

The changing face of wine and the influence of advertising and packaging

Water: the most vital issue facing the world

The reasons behind the recent interest in artisanal cheeses and slow foods

The history of bread

Flourless chocolate cake as it relates to fads and trends

The impact of tea and coffee on the health of the consumer

The inevitability of change and present and future impact of technology on upscale dining.

What fun!

Chinese Characters for Eating Is Heaven

A couple of days ago I asked my Facebook and Twitter friends to tell me about interesting, unusual or weird food jobs. Right away I received two responses. This isn’t a lot admittedly, but I was happy to have heard from both of them. I told you about Rick Barger and his truffle tasting dog. Here’s the other from Valerie Saint-Rossy.

The conversation began: “Regina Schrambling urged me to tell you about a food class I teach.” Little could I guess that Valerie’s food job would be so wonderfully unusual. Ahh, it is so! Valerie’s class description and fuller background is below.

Chinese Characters for Chinese Food Lovers: Introduction to Reading Characters & Ordering From the Chinese Menu

Do you ever wish you could order the same dishes that the Chinese do in a Chinese restaurant, or be able to read the Chinese-only menu? Enhance your experience of Chinese food and learn about Chinese foodways with this introduction to the study of Chinese characters through food vocabulary.

In no other culture is this truer: to learn how to read is to learn how to eat. Why? Because food names in Chinese say so much more. Aspects of Chinese culture enter into even the most common names, so you cannot help but learn about its history, culture, art, and even its economics when you study Chinese food words.

The student learns how to copy and look up characters by analyzing and identify their parts, called radicals (similar to an alphabet). The student will learn approximately 50 characters that appear not only on menus, but also on signs, stores flyers, and packaging. By the end of the class the student will be able to recognize characters and names of dishes on menus. The student will also know how to look any new character using the Chinese character glossary, The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters by James D. McCawley.

I later asked Valerie how she developed this unique food job. What was her background? She explained that her food job passions began in infancy, that several streams intersected. She spent her childhood in Taiwan and India, where “exotic cooking was home cooking for her.

The second stream: since 2002, Valerie has been a freelance book editor, with specialization in cookbooks. It seemed only natural when she undertook a Chinese food project: making an index for the classic 3-volume Chinese cookbook called Pei-Mei’s Chinese Cook Book. (It doesn’t have one).

Over time Valerie’s original idea of teaching herself the Chinese characters for food words, characters, and the names of the dishes she loved grew more sophisticated. “I widened the scope of my food research. In 2004 a long out-of-print Chinese food glossary, (The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters), was republished. I realized that with the book I could teach other people what I had taught myself.”

The third strand: NYC is a Chinese food town, so Valerie approached NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies with the Chinese Characters for Chinese Food Lovers idea and they signed the class up. Moreover, friends and colleagues in NYC would call Valerie all the time: “whatever ingredient of type of restaurant you’re looking for, Valerie can tell you where to find it in New York.” (Valerie’s favorite eateries are all ethnic formica-table joints. She admits that her refrigerator is filled with the unidentifiable. Yet she is petite and weighs 108 lbs! Oh, if only i could say the same.)

To enroll in or find out more about Valerie’s private Chinese Characters for Chinese Food Lovers 12-week class, do contact her at vsaintrossy@gmail.com or 718-852-8485.

I love hearing from readers about their food jobs, though like many bloggers, I wish more people would share their experiences. Sometimes just a single idea will provide a spark that will help someone embark on a new path. I heard somebody say, “There is no such thing as a self-made person.” I agree.

Valerie’s lovely story reminds me again that we are interconnected and enriched when we share our food passions and food jobs. Every one of us is a sum of all the help we have received along the way.

A
American Cuisine will continue to be ‘IN.’ Every one, (or at least some people) believes New American Cuisine is the future. (Though trying to define American Cuisine is as difficult as trying to pet a porcupine.)

There will be an App for appetite control. New diet drugs may kill you but what a swell corpse you will make.

Appetizers will morph into little meals.

Researchers at Emory University will make significant progress to finding a solution for the 11 million Americans suffering from allergies.

B
There no longer will be a clear definition between foods that are eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Instead, we will eat what we want to eat when we want to eat.

Single servings will continue to be the new darlings on supermarket shelves. Singles bars will morph into communal tables.

Boneless. Everything we eat will be boneless and pre-cut into bite-size pieces, so there will be no need for knives and forks on the table.

C
Chocolate business cards will be the new thing: they will be either white and sweet or dark and bitter.

Chic is a concept that is no longer fashionable. Cash, as in casual-ization, will be the new mantra.

Cakes decorated with real-life photographs of the honoree at the moment of triumph will become all too familiar.

Cookies: some wishful thinkers will believe that two little cookies don’t contain as many calories as one regular one.

D
Durian fruit will become the new kiwi now that scientists have removed the odious smell of unwashed socks from it.

Do It Yourself (DIY) will be the even more popular new mantra.

E
Eating Utensils. We will carry our own collapsible chopsticks in tiny perma-sterile compartments inside the latest version of an iPod.

F
French fries will become the new “health” food. They will be sizzled in “good-for-you” oils.

Every new food will be adaptable for serving in fast food outlets in a recognizable form, preferably shaped like a finger, though not necessarily a fish finger, as fish don’t actually have fingers. It must contain all four essential food groups, i.e., it must be greasy, salty, sweet and crunchy.

G
Goats, that will be got, will gallop onto many legislative agendas and restaurant menus.

H
Healthy Food Talk will continue to consume endless amounts of time and energy. Today most people are succumbing to degenerative diseases and the consequences of lifestyle choices. Death, despite the claims of some, is in fact not an option. Only plastic bags live forever.

I
I will be a guest speaker at cooking schools and colleges and the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) this year.

J
“Juicy” and “scandalous” stories will whet the appetite mainly because they allow us minor sinners to feel momentarily superior to our former idols.

K
Kimchee will be the new craze. It tastes so much better than kabbage.

L
‘Lovely’ will not be the word to describe the bacon martini craze.

M
Mood foods will maintain their popularity as consumers embrace emotional management strategies, including ‘purpose driven eating’.

N
“No!” will be the most popular dietary concept.

O
Onions that won’t make you cry will soon become available, brought to you by the biotechies.

P
The restaurant Per Se will continue to per-sonify the pur-suit of per-fection.

Q
Quote: “Anyone who thinks the way to a man’s heart is though his stomach, flunked geography.”

R
Robots will milk the cows, feed the chickens, plant the crops and gather the harvest. (Robots never need a break and require no benefits beyond an occasional kick-start and a squirt of motor oil.)

S
Sustainable cuisine is an idea that will continue to gather strength.

Sturgeon is now farm-raised along with spuds in Idaho. The new state license plate will be: Idaho, Land of Fish and Chips.

T
Twitter. The Top 10 tweeters were and will be:
Coca-Cola
Starbucks
Disney
Victoria’s Secret
iTunes
Vitaminwater
YouTube
Chick-Fil-A
Red Bull
T.G.I.Fridays

U
U won’t need echinacea to cure the common cold according to a published review in The American Journal of Medicine. (There was simply not enough evidence to say whether it actually worked.)

V
Valedictorian speaker Garrison Keillor is likely to say again, “Eat your veggies!” (It’s a good line.)

W
Wrapped. Everything will be wrapped. The objective is absolute food safety. The goal will be to produce all our produce in biodegradable materials, i.e., within a banana-like sterile peel.

White tablecloths will be disposed (of).

X
EXcellent reporting will continue to be found daily on Food News Journal.

Y
Yum! Brands, Inc. restaurants will expand to meet its customers’ eternal love in over 110 countries and territories for yummy pizza, tacos and fried chicken.

Z

Zealot definition: One who is zealous, especially excessively so. So (James Bond) let’s talk about my friend “M”.

Beach Plum Fruit

The good news is: plums are now in season! The plum is such a luscious fruit that in the English language a secondary meaning of its name is “something superior or very desirable,” like plum jobs as well as sugar plums and plum pudding.

Our forefathers on Plymouth Rock turned up their noses at native American wild plums, including the beach plum that still grows in some profusion along the Atlantic coast. They had brought their own plum tree seeds from Europe where they had been cultivated for 2,000 years.

The prized plum, known in England as the Greengage, is in France called the reine-claude, named after the famously fat (and often pregnant) Queen Claude, who was very fond of this fruit.

However, the naming was not so much in her honor as she might have thought. It’s said that the reine-claude got its name because the plum’s stem to stern cleft shape reminded her courtiers of her royal backside.

Here’s the recipe for the plum compote I made yesterday.

Serves 4

2 pounds red or black plums, halved and pitted

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

Rind and juice of 1 orange

1/2 cup port wine

2 tablespoons red currant jelly

I teaspoon almond extract

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan. Cover and simmer over very low heat for 15 minutes.

Serve warm or chilled with (of course) whipped cream or ice cream.

That’s what I call a plum job!

Executive Chef Alfred Portale, Gotham Bar & Grill

There are those who invent clocks and others who tell the time. There are architects who design buildings and folks who paint them. There are artisans who make violins and artists who composers of concertos.

We tend to think of artistic creativity as springing from the minds of dancers and painters and musicians, but plumbers, electricians and vacuum cleaner engineers also invent novel solutions to problems. They are creative geniuses too.

We all know chefs who acquire or are endowed with exceptional ability. Some are intellectual giants. Some are blessed with intuitive talent.

If we tried to make a list of influential chefs, it would reach from Lucullus who drew his last breath in 56 B.C. and trace a glorious gastronomic path through the prism of Apicius who took his first breath in 25 B.C. We’d mention Taillevent 1310 – 1395, and Rabelais who tirelessly described sixty ways to cook an egg.

In his treatise Gargantua, Rabelais wrote, “Drink always and you shall never die,” though unfortunately he did — in 1553.

We’d add to our list, Catherine de’ Medici, who arrived from Italy as a tiny betrothed 14 year-old and became the Queen of France. She changed the culinary landscape by introducing the French court to truffles, Parmesan cheese, artichokes, quenelles, roast duckling with orange sauce and pasta — lots and lots of pasta.

It has been observed there wouldn’t have been a Renaissance without pasta, because hungry men growl, and with rumbling tummies, foment revolutions whereas the well-fed sing happy songs and bequeath everlasting beauty. With a bellyful of spaghetti, a person can contemplate creation itself.

It was Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher who lived from 341 B.C. to 270 B.C. who wisely declared, “The beginning and root of all good is to make the stomach happy; wisdom and learning are founded on that.”

By Gum! If only those old Greeks still ruled the world we would all be living in Paradise instead of dwelling in perpetual poverty.

Do you remember the dictum of King Henri IV, patron of that venerable inn, La Tour d’Argent? He pronounced his monarchy philosophy thusly, “If God allows me to live, and I will see that there is not a single laborer in my kingdom who does not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.” And that pronouncement was made in the mid-1500s before the Colonel fried his very first KFC.

As we march through the menus of time we stumble across Colbert, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Minister of Finance who served the Sun King, Louis, 14th. He approved France’s purchase of Quebec and Louisiana even though according to writer Daniel Rogov, author of Rogues, Writers & Whores, Dining with the Rich & Famous, “he could see no way to convince the savages that inhabit those lands to buy our fashionable frocks.” However, Colbert did see the colonies as a source for enriching the French larder, (though the future presence of McDonald’s in the Musée du Louvre was surely not what he had in mind).

Parmentier was the person who persuaded Parisians to set aside their fear of potatoes. This feat of conversion from fear of crisp spuds prompted Chef Curnonsky’s description of French fries as being among “the most spiritual creations of Parisian genius.” The original French fries are thought to have been first consumed beneath the bridges of Paris during the French Revolution and were known as Pommes Pont-Neuf.

Thus we stride through the first stirrings of culinary creationism and evolve from Sauce Béarnaise to Green Goddess Dressing, from Poulet Demi Deuil with a fine Bordeaux to Chicken Nuggets with Diet Coke. We have traveled far and with increasing width from Sachertorte to Twinkies.

Each stage in the devolution of our culinary journey takes us to new heights: from the 17th century’s influence of La Varenne, we stride through gastronomy to honor: Brillat-Savarin, Marcel Boulestin, Antonin Carême, Choron, Dugléré, Nicolas Appert, (who invented canning), to Auguste Escoffier; Alain Chapel; Alain Ducasse and Alain Senderens to  Ferdinand Point; Guy Savoy and Gordon Ramsay; Chef Boyardee and Rachael Ray’s discovery of 365 ways to use leftover hot dogs.

We can all agree that Alfred Portale, a former jewelry designer and top of his class graduate of the CIA, is among the most inventive and highly acclaimed chefs of our time. As too are Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and a host of others who have ascended into the exalted pantheon of kitchen deities.

What distinguishes these creamers of crops is their ability to think creatively: so not salt and predictable pepper but salt on caramel. Not those four seasons but twelve seasons in a year.

It is said: “No one is born with taste. Taste must be acquired not only by tasting but by learning and reading in dozens of disciplines and by experimenting and perfecting and making choices; choices about the right ingredients are of no greater or less importance than choosing the right words to describe your purpose.”

It is one thing to name an item on the menu fish eggs and astonishingly more profitable to whisper the word caviar. To say liver of a fat duck is less enticing than Fat Duck’s Foie (gras).  Or pâté rather than cold  meat loaf. Pommes frites go better with steak than Freedom Fries, a dish of revenge best served cold.

Robert F. Kennedy wrote, “Some dream of things that are and ask, Why? Others dream of things that never were and ask, Why not?” Nonconformists and risk takers possess the ability to paint toothache in fondant or describe the seductive smell of sizzling onions.

Creativity is a skill that can be developed. It is based on the fundamentals of technical knowledge and soaring imagination. Leonardo da Vinci had to understand the elements of anatomy in order to paint the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper; Picasso had to understand the fundamentals of art before creating his own cubistic artistry.

Every great chef starts to climb the ladder of stardom only after fully understanding the pure ecstasy of a well-constructed consommé. It is this grasp of complex simplicity that separates the sous from the celeb.

It takes a certain kind of intellect to think of serving a beefsteak tomato with a steak knife. To say “I love!” in a different way.

To invent a new dish is to pay homage to all who cooked before us and all the consumers who declared the chef to be an artist.

Photo: Royalty-Free/Corbis

Becoming a restaurant critic is another super job you can consider if you love food and love restaurants. Just look at the explosion of online sites devoted to restaurant criticism today. Four million “experts” (and counting) seem to Yelping online while Zagat guides still flourish in print.

The restaurant criticism biz is changing rapidly. As Regina Schrambling wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Restaurant criticism can be divided into two eras: BG and AG. Before Google, reviewers could pretty much move freely about their business. Some might have felt compelled to slap on a wig, and those with integrity would definitely reserve and pay under an assumed name. By all standards of old-media journalism, restaurateurs were not supposed to know when a reviewer with the clout to make or break his investment was anywhere near the kitchen. After Google, the rules are being rewritten by the hour.”

There are many columnists who write restaurant reviews, but I personally think it is essential to have a solid culinary background in order to establish your credentials. Having at least an A.O.S. (Associate in Occupational Studies) degree from a professional cooking school  is a major credential. It puts you are in a much better position to have an educated opinion when you understand the  fundamental techniques of cooking and know how restaurants are operated. This doesn’t mean you have to make allowances when things go wrong, but  it can save you from making  embarrassing mistakes.

Some people have romantic ideas about looking for a job as a restaurant critic. They think it means free dining in fine restaurants and tossing off an opinion after taking a nap.  Sadly this is fantasy, not reality. Most of the top critics acknowledge they spend a minimum of 30 hours a week eating. The rest of the time is spent writing.

If you are starting out, it’s important to abide by the rules. This means remaining anonymous and unless you have an assignment from a publication or an online entity, you will have to pay for your own meals. Established publications reimburse you for your expenses, but many small publications do not, and they pay (usually a pittance) for the article.

Restaurant critics learn to live in an atmosphere where their presence – if detected – is met with groveling and cringing servitude, anxiety embedded with hostile loathing. But being liked is not part of the job. Honesty is.

Ruth Reichl, former restaurant critic of The New York Times and now editor-in-chief of Gourmet notes: “The critic’s responsibility is to the public. I don’t care about restaurants,” she said. “I care about readers.”

When critics do go out on a limb, though, the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to express an opinion, and there is not much an aggrieved restaurant owner can do about it.

William “Biff” Grimes, former restaurant critic of The New York Times, revealed that by the time he left his position, after serving five years on the job, he calculated he had written 438 reviews and devoured 1,200 meals.

After dining at a monstrously expensive restaurant, Biff was relieved that: “the tab wasn’t coming out of my pocket. Taking pen in hand, I affixed my signature to a bill that totaled nearly $1,500 for four diners dinners, tip not included. In one Olympic motion, I had broken all previous records by several hundred dollars. I felt the kind of mad exhilaration that criminals must feel when they’ve done something terribly, irrevocably wrong.”

He added: “Learning to eat is a kind of education. It rewards the adventurous. It pays double dividends to thrill seekers, who dare to taste a sea urchin; who do not flinch in the face of an andouillette; who, instead of sniffing and picking and probing when something odd turns up on the plate, dive right in, sending off sparks with their forks. We have a name for such people. We call them adults. And when they go out to a restaurant, they are not looking for solace; they’re looking for a good meal.”

One can only hope that there was no connection when critic Grimes moved from the Times dining section to the book review section to a new appointment as one of the paper’s obituary reporters. In essence, he moved from writing about meals to die for to the ‘dead‘ beat!

Bill Rice, esteemed Chicago Tribune food and wine columnist and former chairman of the Restaurant Awards committee for the James Beard Foundation, rightly points out: “A restaurant critic is a consumer advocate. His role is to provide the reader with a second-hand experience before going for a first-hand one,” says Bill. “What the reader wants to know is if he can anticipate receiving a good meal at an appropriate cost. The more the meal costs, the higher will be the expectations of both the critic and the guest.”

He adds: “An essential fact is that critics should like — or, better still, love — the restaurant business and be knowledgeable about every aspect of it. Restaurant reputations are too important to be left to the impressions of the uninformed.”

How are well-thought-out restaurant reviews written? Take it from a master like Alan Richman. In Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater, Alan chronicles his brilliant career as a wonderfully witty restaurant critic for GQ magazine, and lists five essential qualities a restaurant critic should have. “A good critic has to have taste,” says Alan, “That’s number one.” “Number two, experience, because it’s vital that you’ve tasted alot of food. With experience comes confidence. Something that is often missing in food critics today is passion. That’s three. Fourth, critics should have a sense of humor, because so much of dining out today is about entertainment. I hope nobody thinks it’s about sustenance, because when dining out, food is no longer about survival. Finally, we get into writing. Critics have to know how to write.”

These are very good tips!

Grasshopper

Four years ago I met Doris Friedensohn at a conference that was jointly organized by The Culinary Institute of America and New York University. Several faculty members from both colleges presented papers ranging from intensely boring to soaring brilliance.  For me, Doris was the shining star of the entire shindig.

Doris is a specialist in American culture with an interest in food and foodways in the US and elsewhere. She is a woman of enormous grace, charm and scholarship who has a unique role in the food world and who is leading a life filled with doing exactly what she wants to do. She told me how she does it.

“Irena, I talk about eating bugs and other cultural matters; what I like to call the satisfaction of an unpaid food job.”

“In the U.S. we don’t eat bugs,” I say. “We spray them. We swat them. We stomp on them. And we spray ourselves to stay bug-free. We also don’t eat horses, as the French have done, or dogs, as the Koreans still do. Eating is cultural. That is, we eat what we have been taught to eat and what powerful food industries pressure us to eat.”

“In Mexico – - and especially in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca – - fried grasshoppers, chapulines in Spanish, are a favorite snack. For many Oaxacans, they are an addiction, like peanuts or Fritos.” Chapulines (pron: chap-u-leen-ace) are eaten after the rains begin and through early autumn.

Forty food service students are still with me, still paying attention. I couldn’t be certain they would. After all, I’m not a chef. I’m a writer. I’ve asked them, “who’s interested in the impact of this free, fourteen-week program on their lives.”

Ever since I began visiting the Food Service Training Academy (FSTA) at the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, more than five years ago, I’ve been worrying about the absence of cultural matters of the curriculum. Students are taught knife skills, weights and measurements, proper temperatures for cooking and chilling various foods, sanitary standards and a basic culinary vocabulary.

In the kitchen, they learn to fry, sauté, and grill; they make soup and pizza, vegetables, rice and potatoes; they bake cakes, cookies and fruit pies. They are asked to plan menus and act as sous chefs for a day. They are assigned a foreign cuisine and compete for prizes in an international food jamboree.

But at no point in their program are questions raised about the origins of their own foodways or the nature of eating in America. At no point are their own attachments to burgers, fries, grits, well done meat and rice pudding treated as anything but “normal.” Students know they can’t afford a diet of sirloin steak and lobster. But beyond the limitations of the pocketbook, neither they nor their teachers ask: why they eat as they do – - why do Americans generally eat as we do?

“Where’s the food in food services?” I remember asking the chefs at the end of an international food competition. How come no one mentions of cultures of rice and potatoes or cultures of butter and olive oil? How come students don’t wonder why hundreds of running feet of supermarket shelves are devoted to dried cereals that are almost indistinguishable from one another? How come no one asks why fresh vegetables in ghetto food shops look limp and packaged meats are often gray at the edges?

What could I do, I wondered? What could I contribute to the (liberal) education of food service students?  Selfishly, I wondered what I might do to enrich my connections with students – - and advance my own writing project. I imagined a series of “five-minute mini-lectures.” The abbreviated talks that I had in mind, illustrating the cultural contexts of eating or the politics and economics of foodways, would have to be carefully scripted – - for clarity, liveliness and pace. The talks would have to be entertaining: more like stories than lectures.

“After my opening comments on bugs, I describe how grasshoppers are netted in cornfields, killed in scalding water, deep fried in lard, and seasoned with garlic, chili pepper and lime juice.”

Woman Selling Chapulines Courtesy of http://mexkitchen.blogspot.com

“Chapulines, sold on the street by women wearing the traditional long skirts and blouses of their villages, are a deep bright red, salty, spicy and crunchy – - a little like crispy fried onions, with a bite. I confess to my audience that the first time I noticed the grasshoppers in Oaxaca, maybe 40 years ago, I couldn’t imagine putting a bug in my mouth – - not to mention a handful of bugs.”

“But, I’ve had a chance to rethink my squeamishness. What makes fried bugs so different from sautéed calves brains or stewed pigs’ feet or raw octopus — all delicacies that I love?”

“On a visit to Oaxaca in July 1995, I report, I sought out a local restaurant with chapulines on the menu. The owner served us beers, warm corn tortillas, guacamole – - and a platter of flimsy red objects that glowed in the afternoon light.  I grabbed a tortilla, covered it with a thick layer of guacamole and sprinkled a few chapulines on top. After folding the tortilla in half — with the bugs out of sight — I took my first cautious bite. The bland tortilla, the smooth guacamole and the spicy crunch of chapulines were like music in my mouth. Delicious! As good as a great BLT!”

“The story ends with a message. “Around the world,” I say, “millions of people regularly consume all kinds of bugs. Why? Because: they are local, easily trapped, cheap, simple to prepare, rich in protein, and tasty, too. Many Mexicans eat chapulines because their grandparents did and so do their neighbors. And because, they are passionately attached to the texture and flavors. Grasshoppers are a normal, seasonal and sustaining part of their diet.” ”

“Later, in the kitchen, several students ask me about other odd foods I’ve encountered, and whether I really liked them. I mention snake and wild boar; the snake rather dull, like chicken, and the boar unforgettably flavorful and rich. “I had snails,” one student says, “in a great garlic sauce.” “Everything depends on where you grow up,” another student says. “I wanna travel,” a third student comments, “and see how they eat in Asia.” “We can eat weird Asian foods right here in Newark,” a fourth student chimes in. “If we want to,” he adds.”

“I’ve given the chapulines talk – - and a half-dozen others – - to four classes now; and the chefs have integrated them into the FSTA program. They like the idea that I’m taking care of “culture” with my stories from Mexico, Tunisia, Nepal, Korea, Argentina, South Africa and the Obama election campaign.”

“With these presentations, I get closer to students whose lives are my subject and reason for being there. How fortunate I am to have stumbled upon this good, nonpaying food job!”

Courtesy of Martin Family

Heard on WAMC/Northeast Public Radio: When the New Orleans streetcar drivers went on strike in 1929, the unemployed workers showed up at a restaurant’s back door. Greeted with the cry,“Here comes another po’ boy!”

they were given a hunk of crusty bread stuffed with “debris,” consisting of trimmings of roast beef and gravy, scraps of Creole sausage, fried oysters or shrimp from the Gulf.

The times are not changing — much.  As we plunge into another real or feared depression, we are fast becoming a mighty global heap of po’ folks.

Pendulums swing, but never go back entirely to the way we were. There’ll always be luxury in the midst of plenty.

When the legendary restaurateur Joe Baum opened The Four Seasons in 1959, it was one of the most expensive, culinary palaces in Manhattan. On the menu were:

Meadow Veal Cutlet with Morels, $5.75
Two Thrush en Brochette, $7.50
Beefsteak Tomato, Carved at the Table, $1.25 (and served with a steak knife)
Baby Pheasant in Golden Sauce, $6.25
Twin Tournedos with Woodland Mushrooms, $7.00
The Youngest Carrots in Butter, $1.25
Nasturtium Leaves .95 cents

The average price of a car was $2,200, gasoline was 30 cents a gallon, and the average annual income was $5,565, with minimum wage set at $1 an hour. Today, the fingerling potatoes cost as much as the roasted chicken.

You’d think we’d be drowning our sorrows in spirited drink. Not so. The restaurant consulting company Technomatic, reports that sales of grown up beverages have plummeted. Yikes! Could it be that we are skidding towards temperance?

Some have an even worse time than the rest of us. $2.52 a day is the total allowance to cover three meals a day in the Federal penitentiary. Today 2,258,983 prisoners are held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails.

So I have a way to deal with this problem. To save gas, let’s “free” the offenders (fitted with GPS-monitored anklets) so they can grow vegetables and plant fruit trees along our highways. All our food will be produced locally.

Estimates vary but some suggest there are close to 90,000 students currently enrolled in culinary schools nationally. I could find jobs for ALL of them. They can cook all the food farmed by felons in community kitchens.

More bad news: we’re going to have to give up those monster steaks and downscale from red meat to white. Instead let’s produce protein from stem cells.  Of course there’ll be resistance. So we’ll have to introduce the idea in animated cartoon form on Super Bowl Sunday. I suggest we name the new stuff Hypp—O (Have Your Pure Protein — Organically). The logo will be a frolicking hippo fashioned like the Metropolitan Museum of Art cutie.

Corn is a big issue in these hard times. We’ve made the eminently foolish decision to convert it into inefficient bio-fuel, thus creating a shortage. It looks as if we’re going to have to rethink this basic foodstuff. Scarcity will enhance its appeal, but if we used the methodology that gave us red, orange, yellow, purple and black peppers, we can surely color all the golden corn green. Green is what we’re into now. Big time.

Speaking of big, it is an indisputable fact that most of us can no longer afford to shop or go to fancy restaurants. We’ll have to stay at home and stare at all those flat screen TV’s we bought in the good old days.

But, this is good news!

We know when blackouts and other catastrophic world events kept the public off the streets, this resulted in a heap of begetting. This behavioral shift could point the way out of our current economic woes. Little babies are incredibly demanding. They need stuff: diapers, sun hats, crayons, piano lessons, little league uniforms, schools, toys, cell phones and tons of other things. There’s nothing like a new baby to get consumers dashing into the stores and spending without ceasing.

As you see, we just need to look at the future with a telescope instead of a microscope.